- Dolly Parton, 1946-2026
Source: New York Times
“Dolly Parton, the country singer, songwriter, entertainer and entrepreneur whose rags-to-riches story, outsize persona and prodigious vision and talent placed her in a class by herself, died on Tuesday in Nashville. She was 80. … Dolly Rebecca Parton was born on Jan. 19, 1946, the fourth of 12 children of Robert Lee and Avie Lee (Owens) Parton, in a one-room cabin on the banks of the Little Pigeon River in Sevier County, Tenn. … Ms. Parton made her recording debut in 1959, the same year she made her first appearance at the Grand Ole Opry. In 1962, she signed a songwriting deal with Tree International Publishing (now part of Sony Music Publishing). Two years later, she became the first person in her family to graduate from high school. … Ms. Parton was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame in 1999 and the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2001, and was awarded the National Medal of Arts in 2005. In 2022, she was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.” (08/25/26)
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/25/arts/music/dolly-parton-dead.html
- Iranian, Omani regimes outline plan for temporary Hormuz shipping lane
Source: CNN
“Iran and Oman outlined a proposal Tuesday to jointly establish a temporary shipping channel through the Strait of Hormuz, according to regional officials, after weeks of fraught discussions between the two countries. … Omani Foreign Minister Badr bin Hamad Al Busaidi visited Iran and held consultations with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, the state-run Oman News Agency (ONA) reported earlier. After the meeting, the Omani foreign minister said he was ‘hopeful’ both nations would ‘soon announce a temporary corridor’ for the strait. … Qatar Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman bin Jassim Al-Thani and Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi held a telephone call and discussed the proposed temporary shipping channel …. Qatar has previously voiced support for the efforts between Oman and Iran to reach an agreement over the Strait of Hormuz, despite US President Donald Trump’s threat to attack Oman if it interferes with US operations in the strategic waterway.” (08/26/26)
https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/26/world/live-news/iran-war-trump
- US Secret Service suspends top spokesman and two others as misconduct mystery grows
Source: Independent [UK]
“Three non-law-enforcement U.S. Secret Service officials have been placed on administrative leave following the launch of an internal inquiry by the agency’s professional standards office. The three personnel were working in non-operational roles when the inquiry into potential misconduct began, according to reports from the agency’s public information office. The specific grounds for the action remain unclear as the Office of Professional Responsibility carries out its formal review. Among those suspended is Anthony Guglielmi, the agency’s chief of communications. The move follows disclosures last month that a member of Vice President JD Vance’s security team came under scrutiny over allegations tied to a suspected news leak, the U.S. Secret Service said Thursday.” (08/26/26)
- Military enslavement fears grip Russians as Kremlin’s forced recruitment spikes
Source: euronews [EU]
“Russian security forces are detaining civilians off the streets and pressuring them to sign military contracts, as reports emerge that the Kremlin is preparing for a new wave of mobilisation for its ongoing all-out war in Ukraine. In mid-August, the Russian human rights project Idite lesom received 14 appeals from people who said security forces had detained them and forced or pressured them into signing military contracts, either at police stations or directly at military enlistment offices. … Russian officials have denied any plans for mobilisation. ‘We do not need mass mobilisation at the moment; it is neither planned nor expected,’ Russia’s permanent representative to the UN Vasily Nebenzya said on Friday. He added, ‘As far as I know.’ Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Tuesday described reports about mobilisation preparations as attempts to ‘stir up the situation ideologically’ inside Russia.” (08/25/26)
- SC: Graham wins GOP primary runoff to replace brother in US Senate
Source: ABC News
“Sen. Darline Graham — a political newcomer appointed to the seat held by the late Sen. Lindsey Graham — will win a special GOP primary runoff to replace her brother on the South Carolina ballot, the Associated Press projected Tuesday. Graham, who was endorsed by President Donald Trump, defeated Rep. Ralph Norman, a staunch conservative and member of the hard line Freedom Caucus, who had also advanced to the runoff, following South Carolina’s special Senate primary earlier this month. Graham will face Democratic candidate Annie Andrews in November.” (08/25/26)
- CA: Judge upholds Avenal recall of mayor, three councilmembers
Source: Fresno Bee
“The legal battle among the City of Avenal, Kings County and recall organizers over the city council recall election on April 28, came to an end Monday after Kings County Superior Court upheld the election results, finding irregularities did not affect the outcome or violate legal procedures. The court ruled defendants — recalled Mayor Alvaro Preciado and Councilmembers Leticia Gamez, Pablo Hernandez and David Reynosa — unlawfully held office as members of the Avenal City Council. The court declared those four seats vacant as of May 28. … The recalled officials had refused to step down despite the election’s certification on May 28, leading to a legal battle. The city claimed the recall process was illegal.” (08/25/26)
https://www.fresnobee.com/news/politics-government/article316996464.html
- Germany: Third drone and suspected military explosives found near Leipzig airport
Source: The Guardian [UK]
“German investigators uncovered a third drone and suspected military explosives thought to be connected to an attempted attack on Leipzig airport, local media have reported. The drone was discovered in Kabelsketal, just to the west of the airport, along with about 50g (1.8oz) of a suspected military explosive on 14 August, 10 days after the unsuccessful sabotage. Leipzig airport is a cargo and military logistics hub used by Nato and Ukraine’s Antonov Airlines for transporting military supplies. The office of the prosecutor general, which is leading the investigation, declined to comment on Tuesday. But the German chancellor, Friedrich Merz, said the government would soon provide information about who it believed was behind the drone attacks.” (08/25/26)
- Study: At least 1 in 4 NFL players gets CTE
Source: Seattle Times
“Since the degenerative brain disease known as CTE was first scientifically linked to football about 20 years ago, and as hundreds of former professional football players have been diagnosed with the disease after their deaths, a haunting question has lingered: Just how many NFL players will end up with CTE? New data provides a sobering indication: At least 1 in 4 of all the people who have played in the NFL might expect to end up with chronic traumatic encephalopathy, according to a study of hundreds of cases over a recent six-year period. … Researchers involved in this study, published Tuesday in The BMJ, hope to produce a subsequent paper in the coming months estimating the overall rate of CTE in all NFL players at the time of their death.” (08/25/26)
- OpenAI bans Russian ChatGPT accounts used in covert misinformation campaign
Source: CNBC
“OpenAI has banned a cluster of ChatGPT accounts originating in Russia that it said were being used to support a covert online influence campaign to spread misinformation. The company discovered the issue after investigating AI-generated social media posts, which led it to a ‘much broader influence operation,’ OpenAI said in a blog post on Tuesday. The campaign was ‘built around a website containing copied and misattributed academic work, a ‘sovereignty’ index that cast Russia in a favourable light, and efforts to disguise the operators’ Russian origins,’ the company added. It’s the latest incident of pro-Russia actors using AI to spread misinformation. OpenAI does not allow access to its models in Russia, but the company said VPNs were used to disguise location.” (08/25/26)
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/08/25/openai-russia-chatgpt-influence-campaign.html
- Trump says all mines cleared from Strait of Hormuz
Source: BBC News [UK state media]
“US President Donald Trump has said that the US Navy has removed or detonated all mines in the Strait of Hormuz – the vital waterway which Iran has largely closed since the beginning of the war in the Middle East. ‘Iran has been notified that any ship or boat placing new mines will be immediately and systematically destroyed,’ Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform. There is no comment from Iran. Closure of the strait has caused wild fluctuations in the price of oil on world markets. Trump has often said the US has control of the area – but Iran has fired against vessels it says have sought to cross without its permission. Some 20% of the world’s oil and liquefied natural gas used to transit the Strait of Hormuz before the war, which began on 28 February with US and Israeli air strikes against Iran.” (08/25/26)
- Hottest ocean temperature recorded as “super” El Nino forms
Source: South China Morning Post [Hong Kong]
“Scientists have recorded the highest temperature ever measured in the world’s oceans, as climate change combines with a powerful El Nino in the tropical Pacific. The global average sea-surface temperature hit a record 21.1 degrees Celsius (70 Fahrenheit) on August 22, according to Europe’s Earth observation agency Copernicus, which has been tracking the metric daily since 1979. The previous single-day record of 21.09 degrees was measured in March 2024. … The August record is particularly worrying because global ocean temperatures are typically highest in March and April, after the Austral summer, Copernicus said.” (08/25/26)
- Federal judge rejects Maxwell “miscarriage of justice” claims and bid for prison release
Source: SFGate
“Ghislaine Maxwell’s bid to overturn her sex trafficking conviction and be freed from prison was rejected by a federal judge Tuesday who said the claims by Jeffrey Epstein’s former girlfriend and longtime associate that new evidence had emerged were ‘demonstrably meritless’. Maxwell filed a habeas petition last December seeking to set aside her conviction and free her from a 20-year prison sentence, claiming exonerating information was withheld and false testimony presented at her trial, resulting in a ‘complete miscarriage of justice’. Judge Paul A. Engelmayer rejected her arguments, saying in his written ruling that ‘all or almost all are frivolous’ and that she had presented nothing that could upend the outcome of her trial.” (08/25/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/federal-judge-rejects-ghislaine-maxwell-s-22402526.php
- Senile Reality TV Star Floats Renaming Lake Ontario “Lake America”
Source: US News & World Report
“President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he is considering changing the name of Lake Ontario to ‘Lake America’ as the trade war between the United States and Canada intensifies. Such a change would be reminiscent of the Republican president’s unilateral action last year by executive order to rename the Gulf of Mexico to the Gulf of America. The United States and Canada are locked in a trade dispute, with Canada expected to announce retaliatory measures Tuesday. That’s in response to the Trump administration enacting 50% tariffs on $20 billion of Canadian goods over the weekend after talks between the countries broke down. ‘The United States is giving serious consideration to changing the name of Lake Ontario to Lake America in that we don’t expect to doing much business with Ontario any longer,’ Trump said Tuesday on social media.” (08/25/26)
- Report: CIA Director John Ratcliffe secretly traveled to Russia, as mystery swirls over military flight landing in Moscow
Source: New York Post
“CIA Director John Ratcliffe is visiting Moscow Tuesday, according to reports — after a mysterious military flight landed in the Russian capital. Ratcliffe arrived aboard a C-17 transport plane that departed Joint Base Andrews, a base outside Washington used for high-ranking official travel. The plane stopped in Latvia en route to Moscow, with the Pentagon and White House initially declining to comment on who was aboard. CBS News and Axios reported that it was Ratcliffe who made the trip.” (08/25/26)
- Rohingya refugees rally in Bangladesh camps to demand safe return to Myanmar
Source: SFGate
“Tens of thousands of Rohingya refugees from Myanmar living in dozens of camps in Bangladesh held a rally Tuesday to demand their safe return to their home state, nine years after they fled a government crackdown. The demonstrators urged the international community to ensure security in Rakhine state as they marked what they call the ‘Ninth Anniversary of Rohingya Genocide Day’. More than 1 million refugees from Myanmar’s Rohingya ethnic and religious minority now live in the sprawling camps around the Cox’s Bazar district of southeastern Bangladesh. Most of them fled across the border in a mass exodus in 2017 after Buddhist-majority Myanmar launched a crackdown in Rakhine, following an attack by a Rohingya Muslim insurgent group. The Bangladesh government earlier attempted to start the repatriation at least twice, but it did not work out as none of the refugees was willing to go back, citing security concerns. Bangladesh says it will not force anyone to return.” (08/25/26)
- NYC: Grocers sue over Mamdani’s communist grocery plan
Source: United Press International
“A group of grocers filed two lawsuits Monday over New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s plan to open five city-run grocery stores, saying it would harm neighborhood supermarkets. The Multicultural Business Coalition, an organization that says it represents owners of smaller stores, said in the filings that the city would violate business owners’ civil rights if the new stores open and that officials did not study how the planned stores would affect existing businesses. … The plan for city-owned grocery stores, which would sell some items at a 30% discount, was part of Mamdani’s platform as he ran for mayor. It calls for five stores, one in each borough of New York City, to open by 2029.” (08/24/26)
https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2026/08/24/group-sues-over-NYC-grocery-plan/3061787598336/
- Lawmakers, Groups Demand Rubio Secure Release of Sama Safi From Israeli Detention
Source: Common Dreams
“Dozens of US lawmakers came together on Tuesday to demand the immediate release of Sama Safi, a 20-year-old American psychology student with ‘a severe complex chronic health condition’ who was ‘arbitrarily and wrongfully detained’ by the Israeli military nearly three months ago. Safi was abducted by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) on June 2 as ‘part of a series of raids targeting Birzeit University students that morning that wrongfully detained three other young women: Natalie Abu Diah, Leila Khalil, and Joulan Abu Awad,’ the members of Congress wrote to President Donald Trump’s top diplomat. ‘This targeting of Palestinian students is not an isolated incident but part of what United Nations human rights experts have called a systematic policy to ‘undermine the right to education’.'” (08/25/26)
- Haiti: Gangs kill at least 47 people in attack near capital
Source: France 24 [French state media]
“At least 47 people were killed and 22 more injured in an overnight gang raid on a neighborhood overlooking Haiti’s capital of Port-au-Prince, the UN said on Monday, prompting anger over the lack of protection from repeated deadly attacks. The United Nations Integrated Office in Haiti said estimates could still change. The hillside community of Kenscoff, in a strategic position overlooking routes into the capital, has suffered a dozen attacks by armed gangs since last year, forcing thousands to flee their homes.” (08/25/26)
- FBI sets $25,000 minimum reward for dozens of unsolved Indian Country cases
Source: SFGate
“The Federal Bureau of Investigation has established a minimum reward of $25,000 in cases where people went missing or were killed in Indian Country, part of a broader effort to address high rates of violence affecting Native American communities. The new minimum applies to more than 50 unsolved homicides and missing-person cases in tribal communities. Most of the cases are less than 10 years old, though a dozen have been unsolved for more than two decades, an AP analysis found. Victims’ families and experts are unsure the higher amounts will be enough to get tipsters to come forward, citing people’s fears and distrust of the federal government. … The FBI investigates federal crimes on nearly 200 Native American reservations, along with the U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs.” (08/25/26)
https://www.sfgate.com/news/article/fbi-sets-25-000-minimum-reward-for-dozens-of-22402115.php
- Block Bits Founder Guilty After $960k Crypto Bot Pitch Implodes
Source: Bitcoin.com
“A federal jury convicted Block Bits co-founder Japheth Dillman on five fraud-related counts after prosecutors showed how nearly $1 million flowed from investors into a cryptocurrency trading operation built around an automated system that never existed. … Dillman and co-founder David Mata pulled in about $960,000 from roughly 22 retail investors between June 2017 and August 2018. The sales pitch was specific: Block Bits Fund I supposedly ran a proprietary bot trading about 100 digital assets across more than 30 exchanges and harvesting price differences between them. That machine was the heart of the pitch, and prosecutors said it simply was not there. The SEC alleged Block Bits’ actual trading amounted to Mata manually placing trades through an exchange account.” (08/24/26)
- Whose “NAP” Anyway?
Source: Libertarian Institute
by Patrick Carroll“A considerable portion of libertarian infighting seems to stem from the largely unrecognized fact that there are two different ways to interpret the non-aggression principle (NAP). On the surface, the NAP seems clear: aggression is wrong. But there is a deontological way to interpret this and a consequentialist way, and these interpretations are mutually exclusive. Deontological reasoning argues people should refrain from acts of aggression, even if that leads to a less free society. Consequentialist reasoning argues people should act to create as free a society as possible, even if that means using aggression.” (08/25/26)
- JD Vance’s Interest in Huey Long Should Be a Red Flag for Conservatives
Source: Reason
by Eric Boehm“As a governor and senator, Huey Long is best remembered for his radical proposals to redistribute wealth by force and for criticizing President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’ as not expansive or progressive enough. So when Vice President J.D. Vance says out loud that he finds Long ‘great’ and ‘interesting,’ that’s worth keeping in mind. While speaking in Ohio last week, Vance invoked Long’s famous ‘Every Man A King’ slogan and hailed Long as a ‘great Southern populist’ who was ‘an interesting guy; kind of a crazy guy.’ … The moment is illustrative both because of Vance’s choice to invoke Long by name—this was a deliberate choice made in a prewritten speech, not some off-the-cuff remark—and for how the vice president seems to have misunderstood the speech he was referencing.” (08/25/26)
- More Military Murders on the High Seas
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
by Jacob G Hornberger“The U.S. military has just announced that it has carried out two more murders on the high seas near South America. This now brings the military’s high-seas murders to more than 200 people. Mind you, in its announcement, the military did not use the term ‘murder.’ The announcement stated that the military is simply enforcing the U.S. drug war. But make no mistake about it: What the military is doing is engaging in state-sponsored murder, which is ordinarily a felony offense. … Under America’s criminal-justice system, the police are not permitted to kill people they suspect of violating federal drug laws. They are required to instead take them into custody, indict them, and prosecute them. The U.S military does none of these things. It just murders the people it suspects, based on top-secret information, of violating federal drug laws.” (08/25/26)
https://www.fff.org/2026/08/25/more-military-murders-on-the-high-seas/
- Say It With Me Again: Trump’s Tariffs are Taxes on Americans
Source: Garrison Center
by Thomas L Knapp“Trade wars are odd in that the dueling governments’ weapon of choice is confiscatory taxation imposed on their own citizens. ‘I’m mad at you — I’m going to break my son’s arm.’ ‘Oh yeah? Well fine, I’ll break my wife’s leg — how ya like them apples?’ ‘You’ve done it now — I’m dousing my whole family in gasoline and lighting a match!’ When I point out how idiotic all that is, a few doofs come back at me with: ‘Buy American — problem solved.’ But no, buying American doesn’t solve your problem as a consumer. You’re going to pay more, whether you pay it directly to Uncle Sam or not.” (08/25/26)
- Are public schools unconstitutional? A Nebraska court will decide.
Source: Washington Post
by Corey DeAngelis“In 2021, Columbia University law professor Philip Hamburger argued that the U.S. public school system violates the First Amendment. ‘Education,’ he wrote, ‘consists mostly in speech, and parents have a right under the First Amendment to exercise authority over what their children hear.’ Forcing families to accept government messaging — or pay a steep price to escape it — amounts to unconstitutional pressure. A lawsuit filed in Nebraska on Aug. 13 brings that argument into court — and could open a path toward universal school choice. Justin Jacobsen and Timothy and Joanna Menter, parents in the Lincoln Public Schools district, are suing state and local officials in Lancaster County District Court. Represented by the New Civil Liberties Alliance, they are challenging Nebraska’s combination of compulsory education and public-school-only funding.” (08/25/26)
- If Big Tech Needs a New Power Plant, It Should Pay for the Whole Damn Thing
Source: Common Dreams
by Joshua WJ Brown“There is a remarkably simple test for whether the AI boom is actually as economically transformative as its boosters say it is: Make the companies building it pay their own damn electricity bill. Not just the meter at the server warehouse. The whole bill. If a hyperscale data center requires a new power plant, transmission line, substation, distribution upgrade, water system, or grid-reliability backstop, put that cost on the project that caused it. If the economics still work, excellent. Build it. If they don’t, then the public has just learned something extremely important about the business model.” [editor’s note: And if that happens, as it should, this guy will be the loudest whiner that those data centers should then be required to give their excess power generated to everyone else free, because REASONS – TLK] (08/25/26)
- Reports of Increases in Problematic Cannabis Use Don’t Mean We Should Return to Prohibition
Source: Cato Institute
by Jeffrey A Singer“When Americans repealed Prohibition in 1933, alcohol consumption did not immediately settle into the pattern we recognize today. Consumption rose substantially over the following decades, eventually peaked around 1981 and then declined for more than a decade. … Along the way, Americans learned to live with legal alcohol. Knowledge, customs, and social norms evolved around its responsible use. We learned to distinguish drinking from drunkenness. We came to strongly disapprove of drinking and driving and of drinking on the job. People learned to recognize their own limits, and friends and families learned to recognize when someone’s drinking was becoming a problem. None of those norms required us to conclude that, because alcohol can cause addiction, disease, accidents and death, we should prohibit adults from drinking it. Cannabis may be undergoing a similar period of adjustment.” (08/25/26)
- Bond vigilantes for Dummies
Source: Adam Smith Institute
by Miles Saltiel“A few weeks ago, the Labour back-bencher, Paula Baker, was held to have disgraced herself with remarks revealing that she hadn’t much of a clue about the bond market. There have been similar such remarks from Zarah Sultana and Nadia Whittome, other Labour back-benchers. Cue for much chuntering by those claiming to know better. But this is silly. Why should Labour back-benchers turn up knowing all about the bond market? They have recently been hired to a new job with new responsibilities. Like the rest of us, they have to learn on the job. Come to think of it, why should you, the reader of this blog, know such things? You’re all about politicians, polls and programmes. Even the freest market of inclinations are no education in the gobbledegook of bonds, with its weird vocabulary and unintuitive arithmetic. So, here’s the ‘for Dummies’ story.” (08/25/26)
- Repair, not revenge, in post-autocratic Hungary
Source: Christian Science Monitor
by staff“In countries with eroding democracies, many people have watched Hungary over the past three months make rapid reforms under a new prime minister, Péter Magyar. In April, he and his center-right Tisza party won a landslide election victory that ousted Viktor Orbán. The pro-Russia conservative leader ruled for 20 years in total, leaving a web of corrupt cronyism in highly compromised state institutions. Mr. Magyar’s reforms have so far required a nuanced distinction between seeking personal retribution for the closest supporters of Mr. Orbán and merely holding them accountable for misdeeds. ‘One thing we … cannot do,’ said András Baka, a former head of the Supreme Court who took over the largely ceremonial position of president this month, is ‘build the new Hungary on revenge.’ ne liberal newspaper, HVG, noted that Mr. Magyar’s supporters are ‘noticeably impatient’ and that ‘their demand for accountability is by no means free from a desire for revenge’.” (08/24/26)
- Goose/Gander/Flock
Source: Common Sense
by Paul Jacob“We are told that we have no expectation of privacy on public roads. But is a Flock of a.i.-backed cameras the kind of thing we want spying on us, tracking our every move? While we say that ‘it’s only a conspiracy if they do it in secret,’ what is it when the people who seek to destroy the last vestiges of our privacy demand their own privacy even as they plot against us?” (08/25/26)
https://thisiscommonsense.org/2026/08/25/goose-gander-flock/
- Hasan Piker: American Jews Asking for Attacks on Them by Supporting Israel
Source: Jonathan Turley
by Jonathan Turley“I recently wrote about Hasan Piker leading a hatefest in San Francisco with thousands mocking the death of Charlie Kirk. He is now being condemned for a livestream statement suggesting that American Jews are asking to be attacked if they continue to support Israel. On the Aug. 20 livestream, Mr. Piker declared: ‘If Jews in America keep putting this idea out there that they are singularly invested in Israel, eventually someone’s going to come around and take action, not against the state of Israel — mind you — but against American Jews.’ The veiled threat was just the latest shocking statement from Piker, who has said that America deserved 9-11 and displays a picture of the attack on his wall during podcasts.” (08/25/26)
- The Airline Guide to Subjective Value
Source: The Daily Economy
by Per Bylund“A full refund may balance an airline’s books, but it doesn’t make a stranded passenger whole. The difference illustrates one of economics’ most important insights: value is subjective.” (08/25/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/the-airline-guide-to-subjective-value/
- John Roberts Biggest Con Man in US Politics
Source: The Progressive
by Bill Blum“There is no bigger con man in the United States than Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts. Not even President Donald J. Trump. The con began in September 2005, during Roberts’s confirmation hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee. Articulate, handsome, and energetic at 50 years old, Roberts seemed to have been culled ‘straight from central casting’ …. Roberts was also convincing—he famously promised that if confirmed, he would serve in the fashion of a baseball umpire, calling only ‘balls and strikes, and not to pitch or bat’. Seventy-eight senators, including 22 Democrats, fell for the ploy and voted to give him the lifetime assignment. The biggest yarn Roberts told during his hearing concerned his views on the Voting Rights Act of 1965 (VRA), a cornerstone of American democracy, which the Supreme Court gutted this past April in a redistricting case from the state of Louisiana (Louisiana v. Callais).” (08/25/26)
https://progressive.org/magazine/the-long-con-of-john-roberts-blum-20260821/
- Wilhelm Roepke’s Humane Economics
Source: Law and Liberty
by Ralph Ancil“Roepke was born near Hanover, Germany, in 1899. He died in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1966. After serving in World War I, he attended the University of Marburg and graduated in 1921, and later became one of the youngest professors in Germany; he served on the Brauns Commission of the Brüning administration to propose policies to deal with the growing unemployment crisis during the early days of the Great Depression. He actively opposed the National Socialists, and when Hitler was inaugurated as chancellor in January 1933, he left Germany, heading first for the Netherlands, and then finally to the University of Istanbul.” (08/25/26)
- Trump says he’s “the affordability president.” Sure he is.
Source: Washington Post
by Jim Geraghty“Don’t worry, America. As you lament the high cost of living, the president is here to protect you from the menace of … imported goods from Canada that he has decided are too cheap. … The self-described ‘affordability president’ keeps coming up with new ways to make goods more expensive.” (08/25/26)
- WHO’s High-Price Pandemic Plan
Source: Brownstone Institute
by David Bell & Ramesh Thakur“The recent release of Anthony Fauci’s diaries, followed by his refusal to answer questions in an appearance before a US Senate committee by invoking the Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination 111 times, highlighted a stark divide in how the Covid pandemic was handled by public health authorities. … their private contemporaneous conversations confirm that even the top scientists were making decisions based on scientific uncertainty. Consequently, one of the key legacies of the public-private gap is growing distrust of official claims. That scepticism should extend to the future pandemic agenda. We rely on the World Health Organisation to coordinate among countries to prevent scourges such as pandemics reaching our shores, or at least mitigate their effects. In doing so, we must defer to an army of international bureaucrats who work in such institutions. A deference that relies on trust.” (08/25/26)
https://brownstone.org/articles/whos-high-price-pandemic-plan/
- The $40 Trillion Debt, Oh My!
Source: CounterPunch
by Dean Baker“I have never been a deficit hawk, and I’m not about to change my religious affiliation now. But whatever we think of debt and deficits, there is one point that should be very clear: it has been run up almost entirely due to Republican tax cuts and their inept management of the economy. Every Democratic president of the last half century has left with a deficit that was lower, measured as a share of GDP, than the one they came in with, except Obama, who left it unchanged. By contrast, every Republican president has left with a considerably higher deficit than what they inherited.” [editor’s note: There have been no “tax cuts,” Republican or otherwise. If spending isn’t going down, taxes aren’t going down. Debt is just deferred payment of taxes – TLK] (08/25/26)
https://www.counterpunch.org/2026/08/24/the-40-trillion-debt-oh-my/
- Brasília Makes Friends with Beijing
Source: Foundation for Economic Education
by Jake Scott“On a Sunday night in late July, Brazil’s Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and China’s Xi Jinping spoke for more than an hour. It was cordial and faintly triumphant, with the two governments announcing their intention to accelerate a long-stalled China–Mercosur trade agreement. Alongside this, there are plans to deepen cooperation on satellites and critical-minerals processing, and waive short-stay visa requirements. This marks a serious change for Brazil.” (08/25/26)
https://fee.org/articles/brasilia-makes-friends-with-beijing/
- White Lib Female Reaction to Lindsay Clancy Case Has Justified the Salem Witch Trials
Source: Town Hall
by Matt Vespa“The reactions to the Lindsay Clancy case have been appalling: where do people get the idea that she’s innocent, or worse, that she’s not guilty of her actions? The white wine brigade of white, leftist, suburban moms, who are outright morons, is back and worse than ever. The numerous posts from women saying they can relate to Clancy are disgusting, with some posts making me want to call child services because they’re all gushing over a child killer. Is there sharia law, but only for white liberal women? If not, we should make one, since that would codify their shutting up for all eternity, seeking permission to speak and leave the house. They should, if child killing is now an acceptable event for this unholy spawn of fetal alcohol syndrome.” (08/25/26)
- A MAGA plot to keep power in Congress if they lose the election?
Source: The Hill
by James D Zirin“Democrats are widely expected to win control of the House in November’s election. The Senate remains a tossup. But there is a nagging suspicion that Trump will somehow pervert the will of the people to ensure that Republicans retain their majority in the House and somehow steal the election. … Trump will delegitimize eligible voters. He will scare them away from the polls by posting federal agents at their voting places or discouraging them by disparaging mail-in ballots. But here’s the crusher: If the outcome is close, his minions can refuse to seat elected Democrats by reason of a yawning loophole in how congressional elections are administered.” (08/25/26)
https://thehill.com/opinion/campaign/6047610-house-election-loophole-risk/
- The madness of Trump’s Canada trade war
Source: UnHerd
by Michael Lind“The greatest threat today to American manufacturing and global exports comes from China. The People’s Republic has far surpassed the United States in industrial output and competes with Washington in a Cold War II spanning many fronts, including trade, technology, military development, and proxy wars in Ukraine and elsewhere. And that’s not to mention a new superpower space race. Why, then, is the Trump administration appeasing China on trade, while picking fights with countries like Canada that are friends and allies of the United States?” [editor’s note: The greatest threat today — as always — to American manufacturing and global exports comes from the US government. Anything other than complete unilateral free trade is a blow to America prosperity – TLK] (08/25/26)
- Ted Cruz Is an Opportunistic Chameleon
Source: The American Conservative
by Jack Hunter“Today, loudly and proudly, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) is a staunch supporter of the Iran War, the state of Israel, and U.S.-led regime change in other countries; he is outspoken against what he sees as rising antisemitism in America, particularly on the right. When he opposed a potential U.S.–Iran peace deal in June, the Washington Examiner reported that ‘Cruz, considered a possible 2028 presidential candidate’ was ‘positioning himself as more hawkish than the White House.’ … Cruz is now clearly aiming to be the most pro-war, pro-Israel, and thoroughly neoconservative Republican presidential candidate. A decade ago, he was aiming to be something else.” (08/25/26)
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/ted-cruz-is-an-opportunistic-chameleon/
- America Can’t Outgrow $40 Trillion in Debt
Source: The Daily Economy
by Peter C Earle“Stabilizing the federal debt through growth alone would require 7.3 percent annual real GDP growth. Nothing in our history suggests that’s remotely plausible.” (08/25/26)
https://thedailyeconomy.org/article/america-cant-outgrow-40-trillion-in-debt/
- Turns out having nukes provided the US very little leverage
Source: Responsible Statecraft
by Sina Azodi“For decades, the United States treated the prospect of an Iranian nuclear weapon as an intolerable threat. Yet when Washington and Tehran went to war twice in roughly a year, America’s own nuclear arsenal provided remarkably little leverage. … In neither war did America’s overwhelming nuclear superiority prevent Iranian retaliation or compel Tehran to capitulate. The paradox is striking: the weapon the U.S. had long insisted Iran must never possess proved largely incapable of shaping Tehran’s calculations, or determining the course of a war of choice that has consumed Trump’s presidency.” (08/25/26)
- Don’t Let The Values Of This Dystopian Society Shape How You Live Your Life
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
by Caitlin Johnstone“I understand what you’re saying, but that’s mostly just head noise that gets indoctrinated into us by the unhealthy society we live in. Life isn’t about racking up a bunch of accomplishments or hitting certain milestones, it’s about living. Literally physically being alive, and making sure you fully live it. When I say ‘fully live’ your life, I don’t mean having a bunch of exciting experiences like going skydiving or running with the bulls, and I don’t mean ticking a bunch of boxes like getting married and having kids. I mean actually being present for it. Having your attention in what’s really going on instead of in a bunch of made-up thought fluff in your head. And that actually gets a lot easier to do once you let go of the notion that you’re doing life wrong and that your story isn’t unfolding correctly.” (08/25/26)
- Executive Overreach at the Post Office: The Battle Over Mail-In Ballots
Source: Karl Dickey’s Freedom Vanguard
by Karl Dickey“It appears the executive branch seeks to use the USPS, a government-protected federal monopoly, to circumvent judicial rulings and override constitutional federalism. The new USPS rule gives states 60 days before the November general election to notify USPS if they intend to submit a list of eligible voters based on citizenship data. Only then will USPS send mail-in or absentee ballots to the states’ respective residents. It is clear President Trump and his administration have zero respect for the U.S. Constitution. The Supreme Court is currently reviewing a lawsuit from a California-led coalition of states, and without a ruling in their favor, the USPS cannot enact these new rules for the November midterm elections. Using the USPS to implement the same restrictions through a regulatory backdoor undermines the separation of powers as well as the rule of law.” (08/25/26)
https://palmbeachexaminer.substack.com/p/executive-overreach-at-the-post-office
- Hasan Piker’s Charlie Kirk hatefest a new low, and Democrats descend along with him
Source: New York Post
by Daniel McCarthy“Hasan Piker is deeply envious of Charlie Kirk. The hard-left influencer debated Kirk in 2017 and was set to do so again before Kirk was murdered last year. Yet now Piker is going around mocking Kirk’s assassination — leading a crowd last weekend, during his live podcast tour, in a sarcastic singalong of an AI-generated song called ‘We Are Charlie Kirk’: ‘We are Charlie Kirk, we carry the flame / We’ll fight for the Gospel, we’ll honor his name’, Piker sang off-key, the crowd howling along, while the celebrity socialist’s co-hosts guffawed and waved their arms in the air. This wasn’t satirizing a political opponent — Kirk has been dead nearly a year. It’s because Piker knows his audience, and they’re not looking for thoughtful politics: They want a hatefest.” (08/25/26)
- An American Soldier in the Persian Gulf Sent Me a Picture. It Went Viral.
Source: Antiwar.com
by Trita Parsi“One of the important characteristics of Israel and Donald Trump’s war on Iran was that it never had the support of the American people. When George Bush launched his illegal invasion of Iraq, support stood strong at 72%. As the war turned into a debacle, that support waned. By contrast, the Iran war had the support of only 27% of the American public at the outset. It took four years for support for the Iraq war to fall to the low levels of support the Iran war enjoyed from the beginning. But an untold story is the apparent opposition – though the exact numbers remain unknown—within the ranks of the US military. I am not talking about frustration, as evidenced by complaints about living standards on the USS Abraham Lincoln, but actual opposition.” (08/25/26)
- This YouTuber Got Kicked Out of the Flock Convention. So He Ran His Own Surveillance.
Source: Reason
by Matthew Petti“The surveillance contractor Flock Safety argues that police customers don’t need a warrant to track drivers with its automated license plate reading cameras because drivers have ‘no reasonable expectation of privacy’ on public roads. So YouTube host Benn Jordan applied the same logic back on Flock. He sat outside Flock’s recent police convention in Atlanta with radio equipment and a drone, which he used to unmask attendees and even listen to microphones inside the convention hall. ‘Flock values their privacy. Oh well,’ Jordan wrote in the title of his video on the convention.” (08/24/26)
- Were the Bombs of August 1945 “Demonic”
Source: American Greatness
by Victor Davis Hanson“Every August, debate renews over both the wisdom and the morality of dropping the two American atomic bombs, 81 years ago, on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima (August 6, 1945) and Nagasaki (August 9, 1945). This August has been no exception. As ever, many critics have faulted the United States for the bombings: two gruesome blasts—aimed at dual-use military and industrial targets in both cities—that may have caused some 100,000–120,000 immediate deaths among combatants and civilians. And not all these critics are on the Left. Two years ago, podcaster Tucker Carlson blasted the Truman administration’s decision, alleging that the atomic bomb was not the result of decades of sophisticated nuclear physics research or the dividend of a two-billion-dollar Manhattan Project investment to rapidly develop an atomic weapon in a race to beat the Axis powers’ nuclear programs before they themselves developed such existential weapons.” (08/25/26)
https://amgreatness.com/2026/08/25/were-the-bombs-of-august-1945-demonic/
- Do Humanoid Robots Make Sense?
Source: David Friedman’s Substack
by David Friedman“Musk is building them. The Chinese are building and selling them. Why? The first answer that occurred to me is that if we end up with robots neither much abler than humans nor much less able we will want the option of employing a mixed workforce, being able to have humans and robots substitute for each other. That is easier if they are about the same size and shape.” (08/24/26)
https://daviddfriedman.substack.com/p/do-humanoid-robots-make-sense
- Rothbard vs. the Conservatives on the American and French Revolutions
Source: Ludwig von Mises Institute
by Ryan McMaken“Writing in the 1960s, Rothbard was addressing what was then a common claim among conservatives about the revolution: that it was a conservative, restrained, and almost gentlemanly revolution that sought only to preserve and restore what had already been established. … Rothbard understood that this characterization of the revolution served a modern-day political purpose: to manufacture support for the status quo and to deny any possible moral legitimacy to any new revolutionary political movements that might arise. … in the conservative schema, the American revolution is to be contrasted with the French Revolution, which is portrayed as a more typical revolution, and an illustration of how revolutions are too dangerous to risk at any time.” (08/24/26)
https://mises.org/mises-wire/rothbard-vs-conservatives-american-and-french-revolutions
- That Time When “Democratic Socialists” Praised a Communist Dictator
Source: Exiled Policy
by Jason Pye“Illiberalism isn’t limited to the right. As Republicans ramp up their attacks on the DSA—with Trump and other senior Republicans indiscriminately branding democratic socialists and Democrats as communists—the organization practically volunteered to become Exhibit A. On what would have been Fidel Castro’s 100th birthday, the DSA issued a glowing statement describing the late Cuban dictator as a ‘stalwart symbol of anti-imperialist struggle and self-determination.’ Castro led the revolution that overthrew Fulgencio Batista’s brutal and corrupt dictatorship in 1959. He then replaced it with a brutal communist dictatorship of his own: a one-party state that imprisoned political opponents, suppressed independent journalism, prohibited meaningful elections, and punished virtually every form of dissent.” (08/24/26)
https://exiledpolicy.substack.com/p/that-time-when-democratic-socialists
- How Trump Declared Economic War on His Own People
Source: The American Prospect
by David Dayen“Having failed at and then become bored with a shooting war, Donald Trump is returning to what really gets him up in the morning: an economic war. An ‘economic D-Day’ for Iran was announced at around the same time as retaliatory trade measures against Canada, a demonstration of the fact that to Trump, there’s no functional difference between tariffs and economic sanctions. I’ve seen some commentators discuss this as a more humanitarian way to handle Iran, as if starving a country’s citizens is somehow preferable to bombing them. But the combination with Canada, as my colleague Bob Kuttner went over yesterday, reveals that this is just bullying with different tools: a spreadsheet instead of a surface-to-air missile. The nagging problem for any would-be emperor short of Nero is that the ungrateful plebes don’t like the world being created.” (08/25/26)
https://prospect.org/2026/08/25/trump-economic-war-iran-war-canada-prices-oil-gasoline/
- Post-9/11 Fear Grew the Surveillance State — Still Growing 25 Years Later
Source: Independent Institute
by Abigail R Hall“Just as every baby boomer knows exactly where they were when John F. Kennedy was assassinated, people my age can tell you precisely what they were doing just after 9 a.m. on 9/11. I was in seventh grade music class. In other classrooms, my friends watched people jump out of buildings. My mom picked me up early from school, and I distinctly remember that every television channel had been overtaken by news coverage. I watched the twin towers collapse over and over again for what felt like days. … The U.S. government responded in many ways that either were largely kept secret from the public or are so integrated into daily life that we no longer recognize them as what they are: marked expansions of government that have weakened constraints on government and eroded our liberties.” (08/24/26)
https://www.independent.org/article/2026/08/24/post-9-11-fear-surveillance/
- LPA Solidarity Stream, episode 21
Source: LP Alliance
“David Beito, Phil Saunders, and their proposal for thinking outside the one-or-two-state paradigm.” (08/25/26)
- Rising, 08/25/26
Source: The Hill
“Robby Soave gives his radar on Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed appearing to distance himself from recent comments made by leftist streamer Hasan Piker.” (08/25/26)
- Ron Paul Liberty Report, 08/25/26
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
“Tulsi Was Right On Iran. Trump Ignored Her.” (08/25/26)
- Trump Watch, 08/25/26
Source: Future of Freedom Foundation
“The Evil of Economic War on Iran.” (08/25/26)
https://www.fff.org/freedom-in-motion/video/trump-watch-the-evil-of-economic-war-on-iran/
- Politics Politics Politics, 08/25/26
Source: Politics Politics Politics
“Is Darlene Graham Already Done in South Carolina? US Hackers vs. Foreign Gangs (with Eric Geller).” (08/25/26)
https://www.politicspoliticspolitics.com/p/is-darlene-graham-already-done-in
- Tim Shorrock on The Scott Horton Show
Source: The Scott Horton Show
“Scott brings Tim Shorrock back on the show to dig into the latest developments between Trump and the leaders of both South Korea and North Korea.” (08/25/26)
- Capital Record, episode 317
Source: National Review
“Discovered, Not Imposed: Bond Yields and Government Intervention.” (08/25/26)
- The Dispatch Podcast, 08/25/26
Source: The Dispatch
“How The U.S. Racked Up Its $40 Trillion Debt.” (08/25/26)
https://thedispatch.com/podcast/dispatch-podcast/how-the-u-s-racked-up-its-40-trillion-debt/
- The Daily Blast With Greg Sargent, 08/25/26
Source: The New Republic
“Krugman: Trump Just Revealed Extraordinary Contempt for MAGA Voters.” (08/25/26)
- Cato Podcast, 08/25/26
Source: Cato Institute
“Heller’s Sequel Has a New Weapon.” (08/25/26)
https://www.cato.org/multimedia/cato-podcast/hellers-sequel-has-new-weapon
- Advisory Opinions, 08/25/26
Source: The Dispatch
“Civility vs. Collegiality | Interview: Judges Tom Griffith and David Tatel.” (08/25/26)
- The Kyle Anzalone Show, 08/24/26
Source: Libertarian Institute
“DESTROYING The Washington Post’s War Propaganda.” (08/24/26)
- Fountainhead Forum, episode 479
Source: Fountainhead Forum
“Don Kissick on running for Governor of Ohio and silly lawsuits over trademarks.” (08/24/26)
- Freedom Works with Paul Molloy, 08/24/26
Source: Freedom Works
“Veronique de Rugy, Mercatus Center ‘National Debt Hits $40 Trillion.'” (08/24/26)
https://internetradiopros.com/freedomworks/?name=2026-08-25_zfw0081212026.mp3
- Reason Roundtable, 08/24/26
Source: Reason
“How Did America Get $40 Trillion in Debt?” (08/24/26)
https://reason.com/podcast/2026/08/24/how-did-america-get-40-trillion-in-debt/
- Rising, 08/24/26
Source: The Hill
“Robby Soave gives his radar on the sudden rise of opposition to data center construction on both the left and right.” (08/24/26)
- Ron Paul Liberty Report, 08/24/26
Source: Ron Paul Liberty Report
“As Americans Suffer, Trump Picks A Senseless Fight With Canada.” (08/24/26)
- Trump’s Iran War: America’s Biggest Foreign Policy Failure?
Source: The Realist Review
“TRR editor James W. Carden talks with the scholar Lasha Kasradze.” (08/24/26)
https://therealistreview.substack.com/p/podcast-trumps-iran-war-americas
- The Remnant with Jonah Goldberg, 08/24/26
Source: The Dispatch
“‘The One True Libertarian’ | Interview: Jesse Walker.” (08/24/26)
https://thedispatch.com/podcast/remnant/the-one-true-libertarian-interview-jesse-walker/
- EconTalk, 08/24/26
Source: EconTalk
“Are We Alone? Cosmic Loneliness and the Longing to Believe (with Adam Kirsch).” (08/24/26)
https://www.econtalk.org/are-we-alone-cosmic-loneliness-and-the-longing-to-believe-with-adam-kirsch/